Wells on Fieri

I make it a habit whenever a restaurant gets a four-star review in the NYT to devote a post to it. At the other extreme, I also highlight the pans. Today was a pan day. Indeed, Pete Wells’ pan of Guy’s American Kitchen & Bar is historic. With David Pogue and Andrew Sullivan, among others, beating me to the punch, and with the review currently listed at the NYT site as both the most emailed and the most viewed item, my linking service is probably unneeded. Nonetheless, in case you have yet to see the review, which has spent the day reverberating around the internet, have a look. And check out the slide show as well.

From the restaurant homepage:

Located right in the heart of Times Square, we’re all about big flavors and good times. Off-the-hook scratch-made food, hand crafted signature beers, killer cocktails and rockin’ tunes are on tap here at my joint and I look forward to havin’ ya over to my house!

From the review, which should be read in full:

Guy Fieri, have you eaten at your new restaurant in Times Square? Have you pulled up one of the 500 seats at Guy’s American Kitchen & Bar and ordered a meal? Did you eat the food? Did it live up to your expectations?

Did panic grip your soul as you stared into the whirling hypno wheel of the menu, where adjectives and nouns spin in a crazy vortex? When you saw the burger described as “Guy’s Pat LaFrieda custom blend, all-natural Creekstone Farm Black Angus beef patty, LTOP (lettuce, tomato, onion + pickle), SMC (super-melty-cheese) and a slathering of Donkey Sauce on garlic-buttered brioche,” did your mind touch the void for a minute?

Did you notice that the menu was an unreliable predictor of what actually came to the table? Were the “bourbon butter crunch chips” missing from your Almond Joy cocktail, too? Was your deep-fried “boulder” of ice cream the size of a standard scoop?

What exactly about a small salad with four or five miniature croutons makes Guy’s Famous Big Bite Caesar (a) big (b) famous or (c) Guy’s, in any meaningful sense?

Were you struck by how very far from awesome the Awesome Pretzel Chicken Tenders are? If you hadn’t come up with the recipe yourself, would you ever guess that the shiny tissue of breading that exudes grease onto the plate contains either pretzels or smoked almonds? Did you discern any buttermilk or brine in the white meat, or did you think it tasted like chewy air?

Why is one of the few things on your menu that can be eaten without fear or regret — a lunch-only sandwich of chopped soy-glazed pork with coleslaw and cucumbers — called a Roasted Pork Bahn Mi, when it resembles that item about as much as you resemble Emily Dickinson?

When you have a second, Mr. Fieri, would you see what happened to the black bean and roasted squash soup we ordered?